1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of cleaning equipment and more particularly to a scrubbing attachment for a squeegee.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common among professional as well as lay window and floor cleaners, to use squeegees to increase their efficiency and the uniformity of their results. A squeegee is an implement for removing moisture from a surface which generally includes a handle which is clamped to a channel which supports and tightly engages a wiping blade. The window or other surface to be cleaned is generally moistened with a cleaning solution and scrubbed by means of a brush or cloth. It is then wiped dry by applying the blade edge of the squeegee to the wet surface and drawing the blade under pressure along that surface. The liquid is trapped on the wet side of the wiping blade and is drawn off the window, leaving a dry surface in its trail.
The professional squeegee, which is more completely described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,123,638, issued July 12, 1938 to Ettore Steccone, has many features long appreciated by professional window cleaners. For example, the end portion of the handle of such a squeegee may be formed to partially surround the channel holding the wiping blade and it may be clamped to the channel by nuts and bolts. These nuts and bolts may be adjusted to change the tension with which the handle is secured to the channel to allow the handle to be slid along the channel and disposed at any position therealong. This allows the window washer to slide the handle to one end of the channel, for instance, to extend his or her reach to a higher or lower or otherwise inaccessible area. Extension poles may be mounted on squeegee handles to further increase the distance that the window washer may reach. The quality of the wiper blade and the configuration of the support channels may also vary with the quality and the purpose of the squeegee.
Although squeegees have been refined to a high degree, expensive and outmoded methods are still being used to perform the wetting and scrubbing stage of the cleaning process. One such approach is to use a brush or other cleaning implement to apply cleaning solution to the window or a certain portion of it. A typical cleaning implement of this type may be merely a rod covered with scrubbing material and mounted perpendicularly onto a handle. The point of attachment is usually permanent, however, thereby preventing the washer from sliding the handle laterally to increase the window cleaner's reach. One usually scrubs a surface with his or her strongest hand so that it is necessary to change implements and place the squeegee in that hand when it is time to strip off the moisture. Most separate cleaning implements are cumbersome and the need to exchange the two implements between hands interrupts the smooth operation of the window washer thereby reducing the efficiency of the operation and increasing the risk to that person when washing windows at dangerous heights.
Another obvious method for the cleaning step is to cover the squeegee with a scrubbing material and anchor it to the squeegee in some way. Then the squeegee can be used to wet and scrub the window, and when the cleaning material is removed, the squeegee blade can be used for the wiping stage. The problem of this method is that if the material is tightly secured to the squeegee it is difficult to remove it smoothly when the need to use the squeegee blade arises. Removal of certain coverings from the squeegee may cause irregularities and wearing of the edge of the wiping blade resulting in an imperfectly wiped surface. If the material is loosely attached to the squeegee, it is less effective for scrubbing and it may be dislocated when working pressure is applied in scrubbing the window. Dislocation of the scrubbing material if the window cleaner is working at a great height may create a hazard to himself or others below. Thus, even where the squeegee itself is used as the supporting structure for the cleaning material of the prior art, the transition between the cleaning stage and the wiping stage is awkward and inefficient.
Another attempt to increase the efficiency and safety of the window washing process was to permanently mount a sponge or scrubbing element onto some portion of the squeegee channel. This modified squeegee is frequently used in washing the outside of automobile windshields, for example. Generally, a material such as sponge rubber is placed along the length of the support channel on the reverse side from the wiping blade. This allows one to wet and scrub the surface and then to turn the device over and wipe it with the blade. Such a device is unsuitable for use in professionally washing vertical windows for several reasons. On the one hand, the wiper blade in such a case is most often located in a plane perpendicular to that of the handle rather than in the same plane, thereby increasing the force necessary to pull the squeegee wiper blade along the surface and resulting in the loss of wiping effectiveness. Secondly, the sponge rubber portion in such a device may be saturated with the cleaning liquid and when the implement is reversed to use the wiping blade there may be dripping from the sponge rubber portion onto the already dried surface thereby defeating the purpose of wiping the window surface dry. If the sponge is not saturated or if a brush is used then frequent communication of the sponge or brush with a source of detergent or water requires additional extra motions.
Thus there is a need for an attachment which may be easily attached and detached from a squeegee but which is tightly secured to it during use and which allows a controlled application of cleaning solution to a window without dripping and without constant contact with a liquid source and also allows the window cleaner to utilize the lateral slideability of the squeegee handle on the channel when the attachment is in place. There is also a need for a scrubbing attachment which allows a window washer to hold the squeegee without exchanging it for another implement during the washing process. The present invention provides a solution to these problems of the prior art.